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Evaluation of Wikispaces
Home > Evaluation of Wikis EVALUATION OF WIKI SPACES Collaborated Evaluation by Vidya and Karen 1. DESCRIPTION Wikispaces was designed by Tangient LLC seven years ago. Wikispaces is a hosting service (sometimes called a wiki farm) based in San Francisco, California. Launched in March 2005 and is among the largest wiki hosts, competing with PBworks, Wetpaint, Wikia, and Google Sites (formerly JotSpot). Over the past year the company has seen an increase to seven million wikispaces users. Wikispaces is easy to use and can be customize for any forte to share your knowledge in the world and even create a community of enthusiasts; end result being a collaborative website revolving around your subject of choice. It offers both a free plan and paid plans starting at US$5 per month. The free plan allows a space of 2GB which translates into an enormous amount of content. However, using the free plan means that your wiki is readable by the public but only you and the people you choose can edit and change it. The option of private viewers will require you to join Wikispaces plus for a price of US$5 per month. The free Wikispaces plan also offers a generous feature set. Wikispaces also allows the option of customizing the wiki URL which takes the format of “yourchosenname.wikispaces.com”. 1. 2. FEATURES The following are the main features for Wikispaces: · Customizable themes: users can customize using standarded theme colours of with their own personal pictures and graphics. · The Wikispaces visual page editor is as easy to use as a word processor using wizzy wiki to make edits. It lets you format your text, insert images and files, and link to other pages using a simple toolbar. Editting can be difficult at times. Paid users can use Google Analytics · Data management: Wikispaces allows you to manage your pages and files using Web Folders (WebDAV). Since this wiki is on the Plus plan, there is limited WebDAV access. To get full access to WebDAV operations, you can upgrade to a Super-plan wiki. · Privacy and Encryption – uses secure socket layer technology (SSL) encryption. SSL (Secure Sockets Layer) allows secure communication between the Wikispaces server and a web browser. While Wikispaces automatically protects sensitive information, such as passwords, with SSL, setting this option will transfer all information in SSL. Privacy of content with the assignment of creator/admin and user roles. Users can also grant flexible access for both private and public wikis. · Widgets which lets you embed rich content from all over the web, so putting a YouTube video or a Flickr slideshow into your page takes just seconds. · Easy Linking: Its allows you to select some text and select a location to the link. · Easy page reverting · Tracking and Statistics: Allows you to track how many visitors are coming to the site, how often edits and messages occur. · Storage: The wikispaces free plan has a storage capacity of 2GB and allows for easy of tracking via the details summary found in the “manage wiki” field. 1. 3. SITE PERSONALITY and STYLE: Wikispaces exudes a easy to use and easy to adopt outlook for all kinds of audiences. The creator has kept it simple in an attempt to keep the focus on the building content, interacting with other members and growing your community. Despite its simplicity, it offers fourteen different themes with standard set colours and layout and offers the ability to converse in eight different languages. The standard theme presents a gray and white professional outlook showing the page title to the top in a gray banner with the navigation panel to the right side of the wiki home page. This theme can be manipulated by users uploading pictures to use as the background or simply choosing from the colours in an attempt to personalized the wiki. There is also the discussion forum which is quite useful for classrooms, corpration and institutions who are using the website. It also allows for conference websites. 1. 4. SITE ORGANIZATION: Wikispaces allows you to manage your pages and files using Web Folders (WebDAV). Since this wiki is on the Plus plan, there is limited WebDAV access. To get full access to WebDAV operations, you can upgrade to a Super-plan wiki. 1. 5. SITE NAVIGATION: Wikispaces was designed to be usable to everyone. Hence, when it comes to navigating the process is quite simple, clear and consistent. The standard navigation bar located on the left hand side of the page shows a dynamic layout of the links which can be added or deleted. The usability of the site is simple where new and/or existing users requires a second or two in studying the site’s navigation layout. Technical knowledge is not required. 1. 6. SITE AESTHETICS The site offers an array of themes and colours to tastefully create a unique and characteristic style. Users can also explore their artistic side by uploading pictures and personalizing the background. It encourages users to exploit their creativity. The site is user friendly to almost everyone. Wikispaces has built a visual editor that lets you see the layout and design of your page while you're editing it. No technical knowledge is required. Wiki markup may be used if you're so inclined. As mentioned it has a storage capacity of 2GB and the details of space usage can be found on the manage wiki link however it lacks the tool that notifies when the capacity is filled or is almost filled. SUMMARY TABLE: Scoring 1 – High 2 – Medium 3 - Low Home > Evaluation of Wikis